1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technique for supporting driving at an intersection.
2. Description of the Related Art
Patent Document 1 discloses an assist information providing device that does not provide drive-assist information when a subject vehicle is to turn right at an intersection and there is a preceding vehicle waiting to turn right in front of the subject vehicle, i.e., when the subject vehicle is present at the second or a subsequent position in a queue of vehicles waiting to turn right. Also, Patent Document 2 discloses a driving support device that notifies the driver of information regarding another vehicle when it is judged that the subject vehicle may collide with the another vehicle at an intersection. The driving support device disclosed in Patent Document 2 forbids the notification of information regarding another vehicle when a preceding vehicle is detected between the subject vehicle and intersection, and the driving support device permits the notification when no preceding vehicle is detected.
[Patent Document 1] Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2008-21181
[Patent Document 2] Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2014-6609
In the driving support techniques proposed in Patent Documents 1 and 2, when a preceding vehicle near an intersection is detected, whether or not to perform notification is determined according to the position of the detected preceding vehicle. Patent Document 2 also discloses that, even when a preceding vehicle is detected between the subject vehicle and intersection, if the preceding vehicle passes through the intersection thereafter, notification for alerting the driver to an approaching vehicle is performed at the timing when the preceding vehicle passes through the intersection.
Thus, in conventional driving support techniques, whether or not to perform notification is determined according to the actual position of the preceding vehicle. Accordingly, notification will not be performed as long as a preceding vehicle is present between the subject vehicle and intersection, and the notification is performed at the timing when there is no preceding vehicle between the subject vehicle and intersection. According to the conventional driving support techniques, however, since another vehicle may have come very close to the subject vehicle at the timing of the notification, such notification may not be suitably performed in advance so that the driver can drive composedly.